Foodie Search Engine

Heirloom Tomatoes: The Taste of Summer

There are many things I love about
summer. Rather than blather on about the
long days, warm weather, and seeing the boys of summer perform ballpark heroics
and occasionally get indicted for perjury and tax evasion, I offer a paean to
that juicy and colorful summer treat, the heirloom tomato. Available in a dazzling array of over 200
varieties of color, size, flavor, and appearance, the king of tomatoes is truly
the taste of summer.

Below is my Top 5 list of ways to enjoy
heirloom tomatoes (would appreciate comments for other people’s favorites):

5. Bruschetta. Preferably made with high quality extra
virgin olive oil and a ciabatta or similar rustic style loaf from a artisanal bakery (in the SF Bay Area, I
like Grace Baking or Acme Bread Co.). Get
the real skinny on Bay Area bread (do skinny and bread really go together?) at the San Francisco Bread Review.

4. Pappa al pomodoro. This tomato bread soup is an excellent way to
use up the leftover bread from your bruschetta (it is one of several Tuscan
dishes designed to make good use of bread after it has gone slightly stale). NYT article and recipe (subscription
required).

3. Insalata Caprese. Salad of tomatoes, basil, and fresh
mozzarella cheese. Not to get all food
snobby, but the mozzarella di bufala campana imported from Italy really
does taste different from our local product – the cheese is more delicate,
tangy and flavorful. The Whole Foods in
downtown Palo Alto
stocks an excellent variety.

2. Tomato soup. Sometimes you just want tomato-ey goodness
without even having to chew. I enjoyed
the specimen pictured here this weekend at Wild Goose in Lake
Tahoe. It was a soup made
of yellow heirlooms, topped with a red heirloom jelly, and drizzled with a
romaine crème fraiche. Yum!

And my favorite way to enjoy
heirloom tomatoes…

1. Straight up! Sliced, drizzled with extra virgin olive oil,
and a dash of salt and pepper. This way
the intense flavor of the tomato can truly be appreciated. So much food, so little time!

Comments

Tom,
Your #1, is my staple diet during the summer. Eating a big orange heirloom with a little bit of salt and olive oil is like eating a steak (both high in umami content). Thanks to you I am going to whole foods today after work!

Thanks Manish! Tomatoes as a collectible, I love it! Her tomato-palooza is all the more amazing considering that she doesn't actually have room for an outdoor garden. Below is one link from her Kaboodle page that brings news you can use...tomato fiends already know this, but it bears repeating: don't refrigerate those juicy gems!